The Brisk & Jacobson Store is a historic Italianate

Italianate architecture

The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...

-style commercial building in Mobile

Mobile, Alabama

Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...

, Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on March 14, 1973.

History

That site that the Brisk & Jacobson Store building would eventually occupy was previously occupied by a two-story brick building, built by 1850. It housed Daniels, Eglin, and Company, dry goods

Dry goods

Dry goods are products such as textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and sundries. In U.S. retailing, a dry goods store carries consumer goods that are distinct from those carried by hardware stores and grocery stores, though "dry goods" as a term for textiles has been dated back to 1742 in England or...

 merchants, from 1852 until 1865. In 1865 the property was purchased for $50,000 by Isaac Goldsmith, of Goldsmith, Frohlichstein, and Company. The new four-story building with a cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

 facade was completed in 1866. The facade was cast by Daniel D. Badger's Architectural Iron Works in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

The Isaac Goldsmith and William Frohlichstein business partnership had ended by 1867, Goldsmith had become president of the Mobile Commercial Savings Company and Frohlichstein had formed a new dry goods company known as Frohlichstein, Hahn and Company. The building was occupied by this firm, as well as by J. Brisk and Company. In 1869 J. Brisk and Company became Brisk & Jacobson, headquartered in Plainfield, New Jersey

Plainfield, New Jersey

Plainfield is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population increased to a record high of 49,808....

. It specialized in wholesale and retail mens apparel. The building continued as the Brisk & Jacobson Store until 1893, after that date a succession of commercial enterprises were housed there.